I just rewatched a piece of television which I find extremely problematic. It’s the kind of problematic TV which I feel compelled to write something on here about, but don’t want to say much for fear of upsetting anyone or stepping into a political minefield. Jews Don’t Count by David Baddiel was broadcast by Channel Four a couple of days ago, and to be honest it rather wound me up. It’s not that I disagree with everything Baddiel says in it; there is no doubt that Jewish people are an oppressed minority who have been treated despicably over the centuries. It’s just the way in which Baddiel seems very enthusiastic indeed to emphasise his Jewishness, as well as to differentiate between Jewish and ‘white’ people puts a nasty taste in my mouth: he seems very keen to label himself, to distance himself from being straight, white, male and able-bodied. Baddiel seems to want to be seen as ‘other’ when the fact remains that he will not have experienced a fraction of the discrimination someone with a physical disability or someone with black skin have had to put up with all our lives.

As I understand it, while it has cultural aspects, Jewishness is a religion: like Christianity or Islam, it is a set of myths one can believe in or not. Thus, unlike having Cerebral Palsy, you can consciously choose to define yourself as Jewish or not. I cannot one day decide not to have CP. The same goes for christianity or islam: they are all sets of iconography which you can choose to observe or not regardless of ones skin colour, sexuality or physical ability. Yet Baddiel somehow claims to be both Jewish and an atheist; he wants Judaism to be seen not as a religion but as a race, and something inherently different from being ‘white’. Putting aside the fact that the concept of race is biologically baseless, I really dislike how keen he seemed to classify himself as other, as if being a straight, white, able-bodied man wasn’t cool any more; it’s far more politically and culturally fashionable these days to be a member of an oppressed, sidelined minority. A guy like Baddiel, however, won’t have faced a fraction of the discrimination disabled guys like myself, gay guys like my pal Serkan or immigrants like my friend Dom have to put up with on a daily basis, so this political stunt, in emphasising an aspect of himself which he could easily keep hidden and which nobody gives a fuck about anyway, seems highly misplaced.